Water Borne Diseases

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Introduction

﻿Donna Liu Water Borne Diseases Water borne diseases are illnesses that are caused when water that is contaminated by human or animal faeces which contain pathogenic microorganisms is consumed. They are caused by protozoa, viruses, or bacteria. One of the examples of water borne diseases is cholera, which is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by bacteria. Cholera is a disease which leads to diarrhoea. A person may get drinking water or eating food that is contaminated with the cholera bacterium. This disease can be spread very quickly with the lack of treatment of sewage and drinking water. When a person with cholera has excreted, the excreta would contain the bacteria which would cause cholera. If the water contaminated by the excreta is untreated, the next person who consumes the water from the water source would then suffer from cholera. ...read more.

Middle

Antibiotics treatments for 1 to 3 days can shorten the course of the disease and reduce the severity of the symptoms. However, people will also recover without them. To avoid cholera, sanitation practices must be effectively carried out. Excreta produced by cholera patients must be treated carefully and completely sterilized before going to other water source. The clothes of the patient should also be sterilized. Also, all water used for drinking, washing or cooking should be sterilized by boiling, chlorination, ultraviolet light sterilization etc. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera based Diseases Water based diseases are diseases caused by aquatic organisms that spend part of their life cycle in the water and another part as parasite of animals. As parasites, they are usually in the form of worms, using intermediate animal vectors e.g. snails to thrive and directly infecting human by boring through the skin or by being swallowed. ...read more.

Conclusion

Infected may try to relief the pain by immersing the infected area in the water, usually open water sources such as ponds, which can allow the worms to spread. There isn?t any medicine or vaccine to treat Guinea worm disease. Once a person is infected, the person must wrap the live worm around a piece of gauze or a stick to extract it from the body. It is a long and painful process which last for weeks or months. The disease can only be transmitted through drinking contaminated water, so it can be prevented in relatively simple ways. The drinking water drawn from underground sources must be free from any contamination. Drinking water can be filtered using a fine-mesh cloth filter like nylon to remove the guinea worm-containing crustaceans. Also, people with the disease should avoid entering open water sources such as ponds and wells used for drinking water. Larvicides can also be used to kill worm-carrying crustaceans Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis ...read more.